


Lessons in Living

by How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101



Series: Lessons [2]
Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Mono is also trying, depressed Mono, he's as bad with emotions as Six, hints of depersonalization/dissociation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29780688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101/pseuds/How_To_Be_A_Fangirl_101
Summary: Mono is all heart.He's had his heart ripped away from him before, but he keeps giving it away.He wears a paper bag, but that's not his only mask.Six makes him want to do away with his masks, in more ways than one.
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares)
Series: Lessons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187654
Comments: 7
Kudos: 119





	Lessons in Living

**Author's Note:**

> Not entirely happy with this, but ~enjoy!~

The children of this world are tough and hardy, skinny little things with grim eyes and even grimmer futures. They know how to be clever and quiet. They have to be, when the adults are easily bent by anyone with a strong enough bootheel. Everyone who is left is plastic, in one way or another. The adults are molded into monsters; the children learn to adapt.

Mono knows this, even though he knows Six doesn’t think so. He’s not blind, no matter how he hides his face. What Six doesn’t understand, is that he can be both careful and caring. There is little else in the world that would help them, save for each other. That is why he extends his hand over and over again, because no matter how many tries it takes, it is worth it if they survive together. Although, with her recent ‘gifts’, he thinks she might understand it more than she knows.

In a world like theirs, you have to be happy while you can. It isn’t worth it if you scurry around the shadows only looking for the next hidey-hole. You have to look at it like an adventure, like a game, like a movie. Otherwise, you start thinking about the ones you couldn’t save or the things that could very well kill you someday.

Mono is very good at shutting out reality. _La la la, can’t hear you._ You have to talk louder over the chatter of all the radio stations until you learn to tune them out. Sometimes, he thinks that if he ignores everything hard enough, it will all disappear. If he ignores himself for long enough, he’ll lose himself. What would he become? What would the radio chatter turn him into?

For a while, though, he isn’t allowed to forget, because Six is with him.

She seems like she’s missing something, _just like him?_ , and he thought it was the raincoat but that didn’t fix the feeling. Whatever it is, maybe she’ll find it on their journey.

And they _are_ on a journey. He knows where they’re going, but only in the faint tickle at the back of his skull. The knowledge gathers like electricity at his eyes and fingers, especially potent near screens. Something is pressing up from inside him, and it wants to get out. Maybe when he gets Six to where she needs to go he’ll stop resisting.

When Six isn’t nearby, he loses himself at the seams. What Mono never tells her, is that he had to kill to find her again. Many times. She would be delighted. Which is why he can never tell her. He’s too ashamed that he lost himself so quickly. If he told her, would she leave? He knows that she’s concerned about him, so if she thinks that he can survive, would she let him try? He doesn’t want to try – he knows he’s too good at it; it’s easier to let her do what is necessary, so that he can do what is needed. Does that make sense?

She’s a vicious little thing, but faithful and sometimes sharply funny. Once he came across her, he knows that he wouldn’t be able to give her up. She fills in the parts of himself he can’t bear to touch. In a world of gray, she’s a splash of color. Where he dithers, she knows what to do. He’s extraordinarily grateful to her, for her. She lets him be who he wants to be – someone who can resist the call coming from the cables, who can be as close to a hero as this world will permit.

He’s not a hero, though. He’s a kid. No matter what the books say, kids can’t be heroes. Mono, even less so.

He’s still a kid, which means he gets curious and tugs on the door handle he knows he shouldn’t.

He’s just a kid, who gets scared and can’t even watch as his friend get taken. He ignores the Thin Man without even trying to help her.

He’d heard electricity humming his name, felt the static reaching out invisible hands, and he’d been deathly afraid.

When he gets up, he tries to touch the shadow of her left behind, and it fades away. Some of his willpower fades away too, so when he reaches the television, he lets it sweep him away to where it wants him to go.

It’s easier to ignore things when she isn’t there. It’s easier to feel like he isn’t losing vital bits of himself every time he rides the transmissions from place to place. For a while, Mono forgets to keep his hands to himself, and something in the distance feels pleased; maybe it’s himself that is pleased.

He’s shaking himself apart, and there’s something else filling in the gaps.

When he sees her pressing up against a screen, hope dusts off some of the clinging static. For a moment, he dares to think that all will be well again. Then, she’s snatched away again. Or maybe it wasn’t her to begin with. Was she ever real?

He can’t answer, because there’s a tuning fork in his spine that’s ringing, and it _hurts_. For a second, he wonders why he’s running away from the Thin Man at all; he thinks he should wait and see if his signals can override those of the thing chasing him. But he doesn’t give in, because those aren’t his thoughts – they _can’t_ be.

He escapes, but only for so long. Breathing is a chore, and his legs aren’t working quite right. The Thin Man looms, and Mono takes off his bag, because what else is he to do? He might’ve killed Six, might die in a few seconds himself, so why not face down her murderer with his own face?

But as his bag floats away, he realizes that he’s forgotten the reason why he kept it in the first place. Faces are powerful, especially in this world. Even Six’s face, he’d only seen fully on a handful of occasions. The transmission likes his face, wants to make him the star of the show, like he’s a fresh, young starlet beating out an older, bygone favorite. The transmission answers him gladly, booming across the city and maybe even the world.

Mono matches the Thin Man move for move, and the air roars its approval.

The Thin Man flakes away, consumed by what his life’s work.

Mono raises his hands, and the entire world bends closer to hear what he broadcasts. Leaping forward, even such a great distance, is nothing compared to the oscillations running down his bones. The Thin Man had been toying with him, he knows. This much power, and only leaping forward a few feet? No, the Thin Man hadn’t used nearly the full extent of his power. Maybe he wanted to die. Mono can understand that; sometimes Mono doesn’t want life either.

But he has to continue, if only to find Six; she doesn’t deserve to be abandoned like he’d let her be. She doesn’t deserve to be trapped by the broadcast.

The world turns strange around him, fuzzy and improbable; he doesn’t notice. A simple tune drifts in and out of his ears; the same melody Six would sometimes hum to lull herself to sleep or to occupy herself when he left to scout ahead. He doesn’t know if he was meant to hear, but he heard it regardless. Or had he? He doesn’t remember overhearing it, but he knows it happened. Is the radio chatter telling him secrets? Telling him secrets he already knew?

One thing he knows for certain, looking up at the oddly proportioned, monstrous Six, is that he did this.

She clutches a music box, maybe even the same music box she had in the Hunter’s cabin. She’s staring at it as if hypnotized. When he’d been drawn to the screens, been drawn to the Thin Man, she always snapped him out of it. It’s far past time to return the favor.

He hefts a mallet instead of a hammer, but wood breaks beneath it all the same, only this time she’s less than pleased at being freed. Colors flicker, and she screams – a high, piercing wail that he can’t bring himself to feel bad about. Air rushes back in, and the sickly vivid purple returns, pulsing like a bruise.

Doggedly, he raises an axe. He _will_ help her, he _will_ be the friend he ought to have been.

The axe falls, again and again and again.

After the music box breaks, they both stand up, and Mono lets himself feel like he has been absolved.

They run when the building tries to eat them, and it feels like the best of familiarity – just Six and Mono, running away together. It doesn’t matter that he can feel the hundreds of eyes on his bare face, because Six doesn’t care and because she’s _there_ , keeping him from falling again. He’s hanging over an abyss, and he doesn’t care because he knows she’ll save him.

When she slips her hand out of his, Mono almost doesn’t understand. Surely she didn’t mean … she didn’t _mean_ it. Oh, but she does. He can see her face and how empty and flat her eyes are. He falls into the darkness and forgets to ignore himself. He doesn’t make a sound as he falls, nor when he lands – _if_ he lands.

What Mono understands, at the bottom of the pit, is that he’s done reaching out with his own hands. He’s done with self-censure and making himself friendly.

Had she seen this in him? Had she seen that he’d been pretending? Had he been pretending? Is this who he really is?

Whatever Mono is, he certainly isn’t a hero. He’s not even sure if he’s real.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I’m so blown away by the immediate response to the first part of the series. For such a small fandom, I wasn’t expecting to gain any traction. But the first one got over 500 views overnight, which has never happened to me before. So, thanks! Thank you to everyone who read Survival and those who are reading Living. 
> 
> Also, I didn’t mean to make Mono so depressing, I swear; it just happened. Actually, it fits well with his portrayal in the first chapter, because depression can mask itself in cheer. So, I guess, here, have some quasi-suicidal Mono. He was meant to be a cinnamon roll, but he turned out more of an angsty teen than I envisioned.  
> (Also, if you’re a fan of the eternal loop theory, this goes well with the next chapter. Lots of death idealization to be found there, folks.)


End file.
